petalponk

Aye the locks are easy once you get into the swing of them. I saw some people looking scared as canaltime trained them with their model the other day! But i reckon if you hire somewhere half decent, you'll learn a hell of a lot, i can personally recommend canal boat escapes, based in barnoldswick on the yorks/lancs border, we hired from them and the people on the other boat had never been boating before, they took them through the basic boat handling and went through 2 locks with them too, very comprehensive.

Thank you Jez I will give that serious consideration! also thanks mrsmelly its not that my boat looks too bad either!

Although I'm currently based in Sawley, I was thinking of moving back up north, I miss black pudding, the stuff round here just ain't right! Anyway back on topic - so i've been looking for some moorings round York, I've been finding that a lot of the marinas/moorings seem to be for cruisers not narrow boats. So does anyone know of anywhere that would accommodate? Also some places ask for pics of your boat, just on principle id like to avoid snobs!

Just something I'd add having moved aboard recently - you can not get rid of enough possessions before you move aboard! I'm going through all my things again and getting rid of more of it! Also i use a 3 mobile dongle and it's slower than broadband but i think it's ok, also a little trick i have is i go to ebay and buy a 3GB sim that lasts for upto 3 months, costs about £8-9, then when all the starter credit is used up i buy another sim card - so 3 months of internet for £8 i think is cracking

So I've been to the boat safety scheme website and jotted down some emails, but what do i ask these guys apart from the price? I think i've read on here about travel costs, if it fails how much does it cost to do it again? Is there anything else i need to know? Oh yes and it runs out the end of july so when should i try and get the bsc examination done? cheers and sorry if it's been asked before!

liveaboard reporting in..... recent liveaboard at that, still finding lots of little problems My bilge pump is connected to a nice long length of pipe, which flows out back into the engine bay?? I'm trying to understand the electrical system and i'm failing badly. Although i did find my battery isolater switch thing today. Getting an electrician to come to the boat has turned into a hunt of sorts. I'm wondering how far in advance you can buy your licence/get your boat safety thing done. apart from that i'm happily hooked up to the mains watching cyborg (there's no accounting for taste)

Just a slight aside, but is it ok to mix white and red diesel? i mean would it cause any problems?

Right, thanks for all the replies. Obviously I need to get a hold of a voltmeter. Right I'm back in the marina and back on the shoreline, so everythings ok until we take it out again. As far as i can tell, the starter battery is being charged up as we cruise. It seems that the domestic batteries are not being charged as we cruise. I have come to this conclusion because when I put the battery chargers back on, one was full and one was dead. Is it normal to have 2 seperate altenators? If so I guess one isn't working? I will come back with some more information as soon as i can, thanks! Oh and the only switches i have is the one that switches on the inverter and one which says shoreline/off/inverter Oh also, We decided to turn the inverter off and only really used the water pump, and yes it worked fine.

so for the first time since getting our boat we've actually taken it out of the marina! The first night all the electrics worked fine. Tonight we put one 12v light on and one 240v light and the inverter started beeping at me, and stopped when i turned one of the lights on. I then tried putting 2 240v lights on - continuous squeak and the lights went out. So i'm guessing the leisure batteries are nearly dead? We've been cruising for 6 hours today so they should be charged up right? The inverter is a Nikkai 1000w one. We have no manual for it so any help on that front would be appreciated. So what are us noobs doing wrong??

Hi all thanks a lot for the advice, the flue has been mostly realigned and it's all sealed up, i keep looking at it to make sure none has fell out! none has yet so i'm happy, the fire seems to be working more efficiently now. I'm gonna have a go at sorting it out properly in the summer. Thanks for the advice about the carbon monoxide alarms too

So do I just put the cement in the joint and realign it? How long before i can use the stove again? Thanks again

Hi there all, So some hard black stuff fell out of a joint on my flue, and to be honest it doesn't look like its lined up properly, there's a small (looks drilled) hole and the smoke is billowing out of it when i'm lighting or feeding the stove. So can anyone please give me some pointers as to how i should go about remedying this. I know nothing so all and any advice is apreciated! Thanks

I'm intrigued to know - how can you know the year a boat was registered from the BW index number?

Thanks and yes must rename it soon, i keep referring to it as "the boat".... maybe that should be it's new name? probably not i'll think of something!

Hi all, I'm Ange and me and my partner are in the process of moving onto our boat at the moment, we're moored at sawley marina. Looking forward to asking lots of silly questions